Thin.

I have always been in the habit of keeping busy.

I don't like not having anything to do. When I find out that I will have a "day off," I end up offering to to do something or find something productive to do. A lot of times I'll just make something up, like cook an entire meal for dinner that forces me to go to the market and do various other errands even though there were plenty of things at home that I could have made without having to run to multiple stores. I have a serious inability to sit still and stay home. It is very rare for me to take a day laying on a couch. When a person like me finds them self in a position of being mostly unemployed (not completely, just mostly, meaning more unsteady part-time work than guaranteed full-time work)  they tend to fill their days with...well, lots of things.

After a few weeks of this I started to notice a trend: "yes, I'll be there." "Sure, I can do that." "Let me do 'A,B,C' and then I can get to 'D' first thing in the morning...after I finish 'E' from Tuesday."

Then my OCD like calendar starts to look like:
Overextended.
Overbooked.
Busy, busy, busy...

And then my body (and mind) starts to feel like:
SICK!

Breaking down, crashing, burning, headaches, body aches, sniffing, sneezing, "I need a nap" kind of sick.

I miss my other. I miss my dogs. I miss watching my TV shows in real time and not DVR time. I miss sitting down to have a meal with my family. I miss not spending half my day in the car. I miss reading a book (which I haven't done in quite some time.)

So, as part of growing and things to work on I am adopting the new concept of saying "NO." The last two weeks I have run myself ragged. I've spread myself so thin that I seemed to have lost what's important. I've filled my schedule with dogs, and puppies, finding work, kittens, and cats, and relationships, and training... I am not enjoying all the puppies, and kittens, and relationships, and training. It's all becoming quite a burden rather than things that I enjoy doing. I agree to do them because I actually LOVE all of these things. But when you agree to do all of the things you love at the same time, you sort of don't have the time to appreciate why you love it so much.

For the next couple of weeks, if I politely decline something please don't be offended. Please don't take it personally. It's not that I don't want to do it, or that I don't want to help. It's actually killing me saying no to you. I am just at the point that if I agree or volunteer to do just a few more things I might go crazy..

Thank you for understanding.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

sour dough starter.

Heatwaves in our little 400ish sq ft dwelling were the worst. It was nearly impossible to keep it cool. The window AC unit and fans worked overtime and that just barely kept it bearable. The goal was just to make it through the hottest parts of the day - until the sun broke and started to set, there would be a slight late afternoon breeze - the cool, stillness of the night would be on it's way soon. Relief...  I loved our little 400ish sq ft dwelling more than humanly possible. And even though there were bees living in the wall and heatwaves felt like a literal sauna, I loved it. What I didn't like about it was cooking at any capacity when the weather was too hot. Because of it's size, the thought of turning on the stove or oven would have been literal torture. Pre-heating the tiny oven would immediately increase the inside temperature by a factual 1,000 degrees...  Summer of 2020. We were experiencing a global pandemic and a heatwave. Temps were well over 100 and quarantin...
Read more

LA, a love letter.

There are 3 views of the city that are my absolute favorite.  The first is on a corner across from LA Historic Park off of Spring Street. It also happens to be outside of our favorite place to drink beer on Friday nights. But the view of the Gold Line stop and the cityscape in the background is the best. It's just far enough away from DTLA to hear the slight hum of the city but close enough to feel the energy of late night commuters coming and going.  The second view is in the neighborhood behind Kenneth Hahn State Park. It's a view I didn't know existed until a few years ago but even when it's a little hazy, it never disappoints. On a clear day you can see the entirety of all the neighborhoods I love, you can see the lights from Dodger Stadium all the way to fireworks after events at the Rosebowl. You can hear the echo of children playing and softer booms from fireworks... The third view is a specific part of the 10 freeway. When you are driving east on the 10 through ...
Read more

Separation

Image
 After you send in a letter of resignation to a place of work, the word separation gets used a lot.  A separation of you and the place of business.   I guess to appropriately sum it up, that is the best way to describe it. I tried to figure out a more fitting word but couldn't seem to find one. In my particular scenario, it feels like an amicable break-up. A divorce of some sort because you both realize that your relationship was no longer serving you. You've grown, they've grown, and unfortunately that growth was apart from one another.  I think if we've all experienced anything over the last few years, one thing that a lot of people have done is a reprioritization of life things. The time we spend and who that time with spent is more important. If I've learned anything about myself recently, it's that I definitely did not have things prioritized in a way that was healthiest for me.  So, that's what I'm doing. Reprioritizing.  Reprioritizing and choos...
Read more